


Mirror, mirror, what's behind you? (save me from the things I've seen)

by LightningNymph



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Friends to Enemies, Gen, Haunting, Introspection, Unhappy Ending, past trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:20:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26306965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightningNymph/pseuds/LightningNymph
Summary: Written for theFE3H Kink Meme.“Why won’t you goaway?” he snaps one night, as the flickering flames of his campfire almost, almost illuminate a face, nearly touch over the shaggy hair and steel blue eyes.The laughter, half mad, rings in his ears, echoes until he doesn’t quite know if he heard it or if he’s going mad.
Relationships: Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd & Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Felix Hugo Fraldarius & Sylvain Jose Gautier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11





	Mirror, mirror, what's behind you? (save me from the things I've seen)

**Author's Note:**

> ...I hope that you're okay with ambiguously-ghost-ambiguously-hallucination Dimitri, OP. Oops.

He hasn’t slept well in years. The faces of those he cut down, during and after the war, haunt Felix’s dreams every night.

He’s not as surprised as he should be to start catching sight of wisps of golden hair, the rush of a furred cloak behind him

Penance, perhaps, for abandoning land and liege all that time ago. It seems fitting.

* * *

The silence bothers him more than anything.

The boar doesn’t speak—yet, Felix suspects—but always, always hangs around the edges of his vision.

He sees the prince more often now, clearer.

Felix doesn’t know if he wants to see him better or not, a thought that keeps him up at night, more effectively than his dreams ever could.

* * *

“Why won’t you go _away_?” he snaps one night, as the flickering flames of his campfire almost, almost illuminate a face, nearly touch over the shaggy hair and steel blue eyes.

The laughter, half mad, rings in his ears, echoes until he doesn’t quite know if he heard it or if he’s going mad.

* * *

_“No way!” Dimitri said, clinging to Felix in fear. “There’s no way that could happen!”_

_“I don’t like this story, Mitya,” Felix said quietly, hugging Dimitri back._

_“It’s true, though,” Glenn insisted, nodding seriously. “If you die with regrets, you will end up stuck in the underworld too, trying to claw your way back up to the light to make things right.” He affected a creepy grin, the one he reserved exclusively for ghost stories, and leaned in. “So you’d better be a good king later, Dima, because if you don’t—”_

_With a creepy expression and a sudden loud cry, Glenn reached out for Dimitri, cackling when they both shrieked._

_“—I will haunt youuu!”_

_“You’re_ mean _, Glenn!” Dimitri said, patting a sobbing Felix on the head._

_Glenn laughed, leaning back. “Aw, sorry, Fe-Fe. I didn’t mean to scare you. It’s just an old story.”_

Felix wonders about that story more and more, nowadays.

If Glenn hadn’t told them that story back when they were kids, would Dimitri have turned out the way he did, a shambling corpse listening to the ravings of ghosts?

If Glenn hadn’t told them that story, would he be seeing Dimitri now?

* * *

When an assignment brings him to the former Faerghus territory again, trudging through the snow, the boar prince walks beside him.

“How long has it been since you last came here?”

The voice is quiet, thoughtful. It takes Felix embarrassingly long to realize it spoke at all, and even longer to realize whose it was.

“Not long enough,” he says finally, looking straight ahead. “It could never be long enough.”

He could never _forget_ about the boar, especially not with his presence ever at his side now, but running from his problems had worked acceptably until the boar had decided to claw his way up from whatever hellhole he’d perished in, speared by Imperial soldiers without fanfare.

* * *

The bandits fall one by one before Felix’s sword.

His movements are almost mechanical now. Slash, parry, stab, repeat—more like the automatons Rhea created than a human.

When at long last the last of the bandits falls, painting the snow red with blood, laughter rings out over the grounds.

Felix spins around, sword raised, only to see the boar there, clutching at and shaking his head.

“A whole troop of bandits, eradicated,” the boar manages between cackling.

“What of it?” Felix snaps, sheathing his sword.

“To think you’re the same person as the timid squire from back then.”

Felix blanches. “Shut up,” he hisses, trudging off.

“Do you remember, Felix?”

“Shut _up_.”

“You looked at me striking down a dozen knights, filled with bloodlust, and you thought—”

“ _Shut up!_ ”

The sound of his voice echoes through the forest, despite the snow. Dimitri merely laughs.

“Who’s the boar now, Felix?” he asks. “The cruel, unfeeling killer, relishing in it?”

Felix doesn’t answer, striding off in the direction of Gautier territory.

* * *

“Thank you,” Sylvain says quietly, nodding at Felix’s report. “You’ve been a great help.”

Felix nods, shifting his sword at his side. “I’ll be leaving, then.”

“Felix, wait.”

Sylvain spoke without thinking, apparently. He fidgets as Felix stares at him, half-turned.

“Stay the night, at least,” he says eventually. “It’s snowing outside and dusk is coming. I don’t want you to end up hurt.”

“He still cares for you, even after all this time,” the boar muses, thoughtful. “I wonder if he would feel the same after he saw you like that?”

Felix winces at the words. Sylvain looks worried for a moment, not able to hear the boar’s words.

“Are you—”

“I’ll stay,” Felix says instead of answering.

“Oh. Good,” Sylvain says, smiling tentatively. “I’ll have the servants prepare a room for you. You could join me for dinner, if you’d like.”

Felix nods, following the servant at the door.

The room is threadbare but suitable. Felix drops his sword and pack on the bed and walks to the bathroom, suddenly eager to get the blood and grime off of him.

The moment he opens the door, he reels back, seeing the face of—

No. That’s _his_ face.

Shaking suddenly, Felix steps closer to the mirror, reaching up to touch his face.

He looks like his father in most aspects now—his face, his hair, his eyes—but his _expression_...

He looked savage. Bloodthirsty. Destructive and violent and lashing out and—

And like _Dimitri_. Like the boar, like his prince, driven mad by death and the ghosts of his past, unable to cope with any of it.

“Do you see now?” Dimitri asks.

Felix’s eyes dart to him in the mirror, and Dimitri smiles sadly at him.

“We were never as different as you tried to believe, Fe-Fe.”

Felix flinches from the childhood nickname, flinches away from the mirror. “Mitya, _please_. Why won’t you leave me _alone_?”

“I could never leave you,” Dimitri says, reaching up to him, fingers hovering over his face. “I have always been with you.”

“Get away from me,” Felix gasps, dodging underneath his raised arm to grab his pack and sword again, desperate to leave now.

* * *

If he had chosen to stay, had chosen to fight beside Dimitri, to be crushed under the heel of their conquerors and die beside him, would he have been able to find peace then?

He can’t outrun the ghost of his past, but he has no other option but to try.

Because facing it is infinitely worse than the chase.


End file.
